Black Lives Matter
June 2, 2020
I stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and with the activists fighting for change on our streets, in their writing, their healing work, their judicial work, and their organizing. This support is unequivocal and unqualified.
I think of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her home. I think of 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson, who was also shot in her home. I think of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, who was targeted and shot while jogging in his own neighborhood.
I think of the Black quarterlifers in America who are policed day-in-and-day-out and treated not as young citizens, but as criminals often as soon as they enter school. I think of the Black quarterlifers filling our abusive and broken prisons rather than being provided the basic love and resources that any sane nation would provide its youth.
There are no words to express the horror of these daily realities of American life. But they are not new, and they should come as a surprise to no one.
Our nation should provide all Quarterlifers with soulful mentorship, financial resources, healing resources, education, access to safe (and even beautiful) housing, and nature in order to foster the growth of safe and fulfilling adulthoods. What we are offering now to our Black quarterlifers and to so many other POC youth is abandonment at best, and abuse and murder at worst.
I honor the rage and the grief that has not been heard and must be heard. It is the righteous rage of protection and love that says: never again will a Black Woman be shot in her home. Never again will a Black Woman be shot in her home by men whose salaries and uniforms her own tax dollars paid for. Never again will a Black Man be suffocated to death. Suffocated to death by a white man who joined the police force to channel his sadism, knowing that year after year, he would be protected in terrorizing people who had no recourse. Never again will a Black Man be hunted down and murdered by white men like it was a game, a game they knew they could win because their weapons and connections would shield them. Shield them as they have for hundreds of years.
Never again.
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Lorenzo Dean, Eric Reason, Christopher McCorvey, Christopher Whitfield, Atatiana Jefferson, Dominique Clayton, Pamela Turner, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose II, Stephon Clark, Ronell Foster, Aaron Bailey, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, and on and on and on… I see you. I am sorry. I see you.
I am navigating day after day, perhaps hour after hour, my own response in these times. I have waited for this rage to emerge. I have prayed for this rage to emerge. I have felt confused for decades about why this rage has not emerged with this force and in these numbers, and I am grateful for the rebellion.
If we want change, alchemical, transformative change in our society, it is incumbent on all of us to participate. But, as the poet Lindsay Young says, “Resistance is NOT a one lane highway.”
We can each participate with our feet and our bodies in the streets. We can participate in our communities. We can participate with our money. We can participate with our technical skills. We can participate with our voices. We can participate with our phone calls. We can participate through our platforms. We can participate internally as we raise consciousness in ourselves, and in our responses to others. We can participate with our writing. We can participate with our art. We can participate with our votes. We can participate with our personal healing.
How each of us participates on any given day is for ourselves to navigate with truth and honesty. We cannot hide, nor can we grandstand. This is a collective uprising that needs each of us, in our own ways, for fuel and for transformation. This is an opportunity for the healing and creation of a society, a society that has been unequivocally racist and abusive from the first moment a white man stepped on this soil; racist in a thousand interweaving and suffocating ways. It cannot go on.
I am of the perhaps unpopular opinion that shame tactics — so common right now on social media — provide us very little movement for change beyond inauthentic attempts to “show-up” in order to not be shamed further. As a rule, shame shuts-down courage and amplifies mimicry. Shame disorients us from our own truth and turns us into monsters, projecting rage outwards because we’re too scared to face our own uncertainties and fears.
The reality is that engaging in anti-racist work, no matter the color of your skin, is hard. It involves both external action and inner de-colonization for each of us. It means reclaiming identity, healing old wounds, and learning from others. It is also a lifelong process, and not something that will be accomplished individually or collectively this week or next year.
My own process is often slow. I am not often in-step with time. I never quite know what is popular or what is current — this was as true in high school as it is now. I mostly read dead authors and books, not tweets. But because of this, I know how to advocate for the long game. I know that this extraordinary outpouring of work on the streets and in activism right now must also be met with the courageous and messy process of learning history, and healing individually and collectively. It must be met with self-care and devotion to self-education, not just from soundbites and actions that can be checked-off a list, but in devotion to learning through enduring curiosity too.
Gratefully, the world is engaged and the activists are on fire. So many extraordinary teachers and leaders are locked-in right now. Resources are in abundance and I know that quarterlifers are well-equipped to find every resource they need.
I humbly offer a small handful of the books by Black writers that have changed my life. These are some of the voices that helped to shape me, voices that moved me, and challenged me more times than I can count. Several of them tell stories of Quarterlife journeys too, which may speak to you, in particular. I hope they do.
Octavia Butler, “Adulthood Rites”
Audre Lorde, “Sister Outsider”
Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Beautiful Struggle”
Richard Wright, “Black Boy”
James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time”
Beverly Daniel Tatum, “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”
Janet Mock, “Surpassing Certainty”
I am sending love to each and every one of you. Love and solidarity. Stay engaged. Stay safe. Step-back when you need to. Step-in when you need to. And stay in community with others.
xo,
Satya